


On the Pain-Reducing Properties of Moonshine in Wolfsbane

by lit103



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 23:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit103/pseuds/lit103
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus hefted the manuscript, felt its weight; glanced down at the first page. “MAKING A STILL,” he read. “After decanting your wash, first “pitch” the yeast—”</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Pain-Reducing Properties of Moonshine in Wolfsbane

When Remus arrived, Snape was sitting at his worktable, bent over a glittering pile of beetle eyes. Snape glanced up, inclined his head briefly in what Remus supposed was greeting, and began to fill a goblet with Wolfsbane.

Remus leaned on the doorframe, hands in his pockets, watching him. He thought vaguely about saying something—in fact, he was fairly sure there was something he’d been planning to say—but he didn’t try very hard to remember it. It was a beautiful fall day; his third year Hufflepuff Defense Against the Dark Arts class that morning had gone well; he was happy—and anything he said would probably just irritate Snape. So Remus watched him work. The task was simple, but, as always, Snape performed it with great care, the slender fingers of his right hand steadying the goblet as he ladled with his left. When he was finished, he strode across the room and handed the goblet to Remus.

Remus wrapped both hands around it, enjoying its warmth. He knew he should drink it right away, but this was the third batch Snape had made him that term, and he could swear it tasted more disgusting every time.

Snape settled back onto his stool and bent over his beetle eyes.

“You should drink that right away,” he said without looking up. “While it’s—”

“—still warm,” Remus muttered under his breath. He tightened his hands around the goblet—and then, as he lifted it to his lips, he remembered what he was planning to say. “I wanted to congratulate you,” he said.

Snape picked up a single eye from the pile with a pair of tweezers and transferred it to a small dish to his right.

“Congratulate me for what,” he said, not looking up.

“Your book,” Remus said. “ _On the Pain-Reducing Properties of Moonshine in Wolfsbane_ , isn’t it?”

Snape didn’t answer.

Remus suppressed a sigh. He might have known it would go something like this. Any other teacher would have thanked him; would have been grateful that Remus had taken the time; would probably have inveigled him into discussing it further with a cup of tea and a tin of ginger newts. Remus didn’t think Snape had ever had a ginger newt in his life. He probably didn’t know what sugar was, other than the one ingredient that made Wolfbane useless. Sugar probably made Snape useless. Maybe if he accidentally ingested it, he’d shrivel up like a salted slug. Remus barely suppressed a snort of laughter. Snape would probably prefer that he drink his Wolfsbane in silence, as usual, and leave without saying a word. Remus glanced down at the goblet. Well, if that’s what Snape wanted…

“I know you’re trying to keep it quiet,” he went on. “Which is probably why you weren’t at the staff table this morning. But Dumbledore made an announcement about it, so so much for secrecy.”

“It’s hardly a secret,” Snape said, picking up another eye with the tweezers.

“Well, it would have been, a little,” Remus said, grinning in spite of himself. “To everyone who doesn’t subscribe to _Potion Master’s Quarterly_. Or keep up with the output of Messrs. Humble, Bumble, and Hive: an Equal-Opportunity Publishing House.”

Snape glanced up at him at that, and Remus could have sworn he saw the faintest hint of a smile. Clearly, his attempts to irritate the man weren’t having the intended effect. It was unexpectedly satisfying.

“I do, in fact, keep up with the output of Messrs. Humble and Hive,” he went on. “They published a really useful little book on the use of derivative linguistics in spell-casting last year. I wish I’d had it during sixth year charms. Would’ve made lightning into lightning bugs that much easier.”

Snape didn’t speak or smile this time. He’d turned back to his beetle eyes.

“And,” Remus added, “they make an excellent hot pepper-infused honey.”

Snape maintained his inscrutable silence.

Clearly, his attempts to amuse the man were just as ineffective as his attempts to be irritating. Remus gave up and settled for simply watching him again. In this task, as in everything, Snape was both careful and efficient. He selected a single eye based on characteristics as invisible to Remus as they were apparently important to Snape, and lifted it delicately from the pile.

“Why do you publish with them?” Remus asked.

Snape paused in the middle of selecting an eye. For a moment it looked like he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “They accepted my first manuscript when I was twenty-five. And they were kinder than a young and very arrogant potions master who was expecting his twenty-third rejection had any right to expect. Guttersnipe spleens, seventh shelf up, third from the left.”

“Oh,” said Remus, a little taken aback. He put down the now cool goblet of Wolfsbane, selected the jar Snape indicated, and handed it to him.

“So it’s not because you don’t want people to read it,” he said, settling back against the doorframe.

“You did hear me, I trust,” Snape said acerbically, “when I said my _twenty-third_ rejection?”

“But why not go to Gutenberg’s, or something?” Remus asked, still puzzled. “They’d take you on, I’m sure of it; I’m surprised they haven’t made you an offer!”

“I don’t recall saying they hadn’t,” Snape replied. Remus grinned again. “ ‘Everyone who subscribes to _Potion Master’s Quarterly_ ,’ as I believe you put it, is my audience, Lupin. Hive will make sure my book makes its way into the right hands. If third-year Hufflepuffs and potions correspondence course subscribers were queuing up to read the thing, I would consider myself a failure.”

“Ah,” Remus said.

Snape unscrewed the jar and thrust what looked like a pair of silver chopsticks into it. Remus watched him in silence as he selected three spleens and lifted them out one by one.

“I don’t know why I asked you what the title was,” he said. “I have a friend at Humble; he gave me an advance copy weeks ago.”

“Precisely,” Snape said.

“Jeremy Whitetail,” Remus said. “You know him, I expect? Werewolf rights activist. Sometimes I wonder whether that isn’t why he’s friends with me. Be a bit unusual, wouldn’t it; a werewolf rights activist with no werewolf friends. But he does know my taste in books.”

Snape rolled his eyes.

“You read it?” he asked abruptly.

Remus nodded. “I did, yes. If you must know, I was rather hoping you’d ensnare me into staying here and discussing it with you.”

Snape gave him a sharp look. “Ensnare you,” he repeated, enunciating carefully, as if he’d never heard the phrase.

“With ginger newts, ideally,” Remus said. “But a cup of tea would have done just as well.”

Snape watched him expressionlessly for a moment, taking this in. Then, as if he’d come to a decision, he rose abruptly, crossed the room, selected a slim volume, and brandished it. “You read this?” he said.

“Yes,” Remus said uncertainly. “Well, my advance copy has a purple cover, but I can see why you’d prefer bl—”

“This,” Snape said, shaking it, “isn’t the book. Not this,” he said, slapping it lightly against the shelf behind him. “The manuscript is twice its length.”

He replaced the volume, strode over to his desk, pulled out a drawer and produced a stack of creamy parchment.

“What you read is less than half of this,” he said, striding over to Remus and placing it in his hands. Remus hefted it, felt its weight; glanced down at the first page. “MAKING A STILL,” he read. “After decanting your wash, first “pitch” the yeast—” before Snape snatched it away and replaced it in the drawer.

“That wasn’t the book,” he said. “The real book is—” he gestured impatiently at his head and sat down behind his desk again, but this time he didn’t pick up the tweezers.

Remus watched him in silence. Now that they were, apparently, discussing the book, he was at a loss for words. More was being said than Snape was actually saying, that much was clear—but Remus hadn’t the slightest idea what it was.

“When did you write it?” he asked, to buy himself time.

“July,” Snape said.

Dumbledore offered Remus the Defense Against the Dark Arts job in July. He’d been less surprised by the offer than by the fact that the usually efficient Dumbledore had waited until three weeks before the start of term to make it. Remus concluded that he was last on the list. He was a capable DADA student in his time, but he lacked flair, tended to lose his head in a crisis—and of course there was the not insignificant matter of his technically being a Dark creature himself.

Wolfsbane might taste disgusting, Remus thought bitterly, but at least it wasn’t lethal. Anymore. Prototypes from the 15th century had been; were-hunters fed it to rabbits and set them loose on the full moon. Even now, researchers who were willing to waste their talents helping werewolves were rare—the original potion, though far from perfect, hadn’t been modified in fifty years.

And here was Snape, shut up in his dungeon in the middle of July, modifying it.

“Why?” Remus asked. “Why improve it at all, I mean?”

“I’d had the idea for years,” Snape said, not looking at him. “I could have implemented it in my sleep. Having an experimental subject on hand was invaluable, of course.”

“An experimental—” Remus began indignantly, and stopped. He wasn’t surprised that Snape had tested it on him the first few times and, he realized, when it came down to brass tacks he didn’t really mind. He also had a feeling that answer was bait, and Snape wanted him to take it.

“Anytime,” he said, shrugging. “But still, Severus—why? The lucidity was near-perfect, and the pain was—well, it wasn’t debilitating… It’s a pity about the taste, but I suppose you can’t have everything.”

Snape sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. For a moment, it looked like he wasn’t going to speak.

“Because of something I once saw,” he finally said. “At the end of a tunnel. I only caught a glimpse.”

Remus went very still. He opened his mouth, unsure whether he dared speak. Snape wasn’t looking at him, but he made an impatient gesture with his hand to silence him, as if he’d seen.

“It was a… a hunched figure, half-hidden by darkness, and its eyes were full of pain,” Snape said. “It wasn’t the pain, exactly. It was the certainty that he was unable to speak it. And that despite that, I could see it. But because of that, I couldn’t be sure what I saw was real.”

Snape stopped speaking and glanced up. Remus was standing quite still. He saw what might have been a flicker of anger in Snape’s eyes before they became inscrutable again.

“I saw him at breakfast several days later,” Snape said. “He was laughing. I thought that perhaps I’d dreamed it.”

Remus stayed very still, looking at him. He was half-afraid to break the silence.

Snape stared at the table for a moment. Then he shook himself, sighed, and began to replace the tweezers on a small shelf with his usual efficiency.

“Severus—” Remus began.

Snape turned, hands falling to his sides. Remus forced himself to meet his implacable eyes. In his mind, he imagined saying several things and summarily discarded all of them. Snape was watching him as if he’d already anticipated and dismissed everything that Remus might say. I didn’t know? He hadn’t; but Snape knew that. I’m sorry? He was, but he wasn’t the one who should be apologizing. Thank you? He could kick himself for not saying that already—for not saying it as soon as he realized who Snape had modified the potion for—but he knew it was the last thing Snape wanted to hear.

Remus took a deep breath.

“Well, Severus,” he said drily. “I must say I’m disappointed. The pain is gone, the lucidity is perfect, but it tastes like the back end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt.”

Snape snorted.

“You speak from experience, I trust?” he asked.

Remus grinned. “Experience?” he said. “Oh, I have that in spades. They say it’s the greatest asset a Dark Arts professor can have. And you know Dumbledore—he only hires the best.”

Snape glanced at Remus’ still-full goblet, pursed his lips disapprovingly, and ladled him another.

“You should have drunk that while it was still warm,” he said. “As for the taste…”

He handed Remus a small vial full of tiny white crystals that looked remarkably like—

“Sugar,” Snape said, in response to Remus’ questioning look. “It doesn’t, strictly speaking, make it useless. You’re here, so you might as well make yourself useful, Lupin. Fluxweed, tenth shelf up, sixteen to the left.”

Remus reached up, grasped it, and handed Snape the jar.

_Fin._


End file.
